- Joined
- Jan 15, 2007
- Messages
- 90
Introduction:
In France, there is not only whine, frog meals, and Eiffel tower postcards. There are traces of human presence since at least 15.000 before Christ, with the cave of Lascaux and it's internationaly famous prehistoric paintings. This land saw the mighty Celts, then the Roman occupation, and finally the savage germanic invaders after the fall of the Roman Empire. Untill the 1950's, more than half of the population was living in the countryside, or in small villages. We have long been a people of peasants and farmers, living from agriculture or breeding. Knives were required for most tasks of everyday life.
When the industry began to grow, and gave the possibility for almost everybody to have a cheap and efficient pocket knife, the companies decided to reproduce the usual design of every "région". So, most of the knives they produced were certainly here long before, and every régionnal knife had his market. But some companies also made their success by improvement of ancient models (Opinel), or total innovations (Douk Douk). All this just to say that even if we have a few "archeologic" clues of the existence of the knives i will present, we can almost swear they were not invented by the companies, but reproduced from ancient and usual designs.
In this first post, i will begin with the most famous french knives: the Opinel, the Douk-Douk, and the Laguiole.
The Opinel:
This simple yet efficient knife is made in the région of Savoie (near italian border) since 1890. During all of it's history, more than... 250 millions Opinels have been sold!!!
The design is an improvement of a régionnal knife, called the "Savoie" (yes, what a frigthening imagination we have here, hu?). Joseph Opinel, founder of the company, added the security rotating collar (already seen on another knife called the Nontron, from it's town of origin), and this simple idea made this a product the incredible international success we know.
It's main qualities are:
+ the thin, flat ground, razor sharp blade, easy to resharpen, avaiable both in carbon and stainless
+ the security ring: simple and efficient
+ the ergonomic wood handle (thought the carbon blade version have an horrible orange finish)
+ the low cost: 8EUR in France (12USD)
+ and a model for every size of hand (usual is number 8), even a very big one to serve the turkey or lamb's shoulder at the familly table
By personnal experience, i can assert it is really razor sharp
.
The Douk Douk:
This slip joint knife have been designed in 1929 by the french cutlery Cognet (precisely, Gaspard Cognet is the inventor). Basically, it had been designed to suit the need of a reliable, efficient, rustic pocket knife for the french colonies in the Indian Ocean (New-Caledonia, for exemple), this is the reason of the funny character on the handle (an indonesian divinity):
But it was not a success there. At least, not as big compared to the African colonies. Even nowadays, peoples of these ex-colonies still widely use this knife. But during the Algerian Independance War, the algerian nationalists (also terrorists) called "fellagas" used it a lot against the french army and the settlers. As it was cheap, you could throw it after a murder. As it was flat, you could hide it easily. With a good hammer smash behind the axe, you could make it a fixed blade knife. It was even so widely used, the production had been stopped during the time of the war, and the selling of the knife totally prohibited in Algeria. But nowadays, this knife have found his pacific use again, and today as 70 years in the past, it still handling it's job without problem.
Main qualities:
+ also a razor sharp edge and flat ground blade, but thicker than the opinel. Avaible also is two version (for the medium size model): stainless blade and chromed handle, or carbon blade and bronzed hanlde.
+ a very strong and reliable slip joint, you can be sure it will never collapse on your fingers till you do it deliberately
+ a simple and reliable design: the handle is made out of one steel sheet, folded in the midle to form the back of the handle where the spring takes support, one pin for the blade axe, one pin to maintain the spring and the ring to attach a cord. No useless part, just the fonctionnality.
+ relatively cheap (prices in France): 12EUR (18USD) for the carbon blade, 17EUR (25USD) for the stainless version, medium size
+ three sizes: 3, 4, 5 inches blades (notice the 5" is lot more expensive: 65EUR, about 95USD, but the handle is convex and polished)
And now, the famous Laguiole:
(With the corkscrew, please
)
With this knife, we begin to enter in the domain of the true traditionnal french pocket knife. Regrettably, the Laguiole have been copied over and over, and most of them are only crap made in asia. This traditionnal design have never been protected, and here we are now. But we still product it in France. In the town of Laguiole, of course, but also in Thiers, and many knifemakers tried it once. It have many many variations: the materials of the scales, the blade (damascus or not?), the corkscrew, the awl (don't forget it meant to be a popular knife, and the awl can be usefull for many tasks), file works, etc...
Now, a more technical presentation. The Laguiole is normally what we call a "cran forcé" (i don't know the english translation, sorry), it means there is no true lock that maintain the blade fixed, but only a very hard point when the blade id fully open. There is a notch on the blade that ressembles to a lockback, but it's in fact a spring that goes in. You would have understand that it's a knife mounted on liners (as the Opinel and Douk were both "full handles"). The blade have what we call a "yatagan" shape (broken back and sligthly upswept point). And one last detail: on the top of the spring, near the blade, ther is what we call "la mouche" (the fly).
I can't say much more about this knife, cause they are so many variations i can't even do a list. Just know that there are some other older and more expensive designs: a lady's leg with it's bootee (called then "bottine"), a kind of strange shape i cannot really describe called "aile de pigeon" (pigeon's wing, but don't search the wing, nor the pigeon), another looking like a twisted rope, called "corde", etc... There is also new design for more hard uses, we call "Laguiole de chasse" (hunting Laguiole), "Laguiole Nature", "Laguiole de sport", things like that (all of the previously listed are lockbacks). And for those who like to open their whine in the french way, there is also the "Laguiole sommelier", that just keep the handle shape, but have one small blade to cut the metal hood of the botle, of course a corkscrew, and a metal piece with two notchs that takes support on the neck of the bottle, making lever to have more force for extracting the cork.
I can't give names of good manufacturers of Laguiole knives, but sure if you come in Thiers, you fond them in every cutlery store! I will also not do the "main qualities" thing, as it all depends of the maker. The only thing is that it's a traditionnal design that offers many possibilities in term of quality and preciosity. From noname stainless steel with red/green stamina scales to most famous knifemakers' damascus blade with gold engravings, forged spring and fly, file works, and mamouth scales.
Well... i think that's enough for today.
If you like this post, let me know, i will try to make more, about more traditionnal knives, less known in America (then more interesting for most of readers here, i suppose).
In France, there is not only whine, frog meals, and Eiffel tower postcards. There are traces of human presence since at least 15.000 before Christ, with the cave of Lascaux and it's internationaly famous prehistoric paintings. This land saw the mighty Celts, then the Roman occupation, and finally the savage germanic invaders after the fall of the Roman Empire. Untill the 1950's, more than half of the population was living in the countryside, or in small villages. We have long been a people of peasants and farmers, living from agriculture or breeding. Knives were required for most tasks of everyday life.
When the industry began to grow, and gave the possibility for almost everybody to have a cheap and efficient pocket knife, the companies decided to reproduce the usual design of every "région". So, most of the knives they produced were certainly here long before, and every régionnal knife had his market. But some companies also made their success by improvement of ancient models (Opinel), or total innovations (Douk Douk). All this just to say that even if we have a few "archeologic" clues of the existence of the knives i will present, we can almost swear they were not invented by the companies, but reproduced from ancient and usual designs.
In this first post, i will begin with the most famous french knives: the Opinel, the Douk-Douk, and the Laguiole.
The Opinel:
This simple yet efficient knife is made in the région of Savoie (near italian border) since 1890. During all of it's history, more than... 250 millions Opinels have been sold!!!
The design is an improvement of a régionnal knife, called the "Savoie" (yes, what a frigthening imagination we have here, hu?). Joseph Opinel, founder of the company, added the security rotating collar (already seen on another knife called the Nontron, from it's town of origin), and this simple idea made this a product the incredible international success we know.
It's main qualities are:
+ the thin, flat ground, razor sharp blade, easy to resharpen, avaiable both in carbon and stainless
+ the security ring: simple and efficient
+ the ergonomic wood handle (thought the carbon blade version have an horrible orange finish)
+ the low cost: 8EUR in France (12USD)
+ and a model for every size of hand (usual is number 8), even a very big one to serve the turkey or lamb's shoulder at the familly table
By personnal experience, i can assert it is really razor sharp
.The Douk Douk:
This slip joint knife have been designed in 1929 by the french cutlery Cognet (precisely, Gaspard Cognet is the inventor). Basically, it had been designed to suit the need of a reliable, efficient, rustic pocket knife for the french colonies in the Indian Ocean (New-Caledonia, for exemple), this is the reason of the funny character on the handle (an indonesian divinity):
But it was not a success there. At least, not as big compared to the African colonies. Even nowadays, peoples of these ex-colonies still widely use this knife. But during the Algerian Independance War, the algerian nationalists (also terrorists) called "fellagas" used it a lot against the french army and the settlers. As it was cheap, you could throw it after a murder. As it was flat, you could hide it easily. With a good hammer smash behind the axe, you could make it a fixed blade knife. It was even so widely used, the production had been stopped during the time of the war, and the selling of the knife totally prohibited in Algeria. But nowadays, this knife have found his pacific use again, and today as 70 years in the past, it still handling it's job without problem.
Main qualities:
+ also a razor sharp edge and flat ground blade, but thicker than the opinel. Avaible also is two version (for the medium size model): stainless blade and chromed handle, or carbon blade and bronzed hanlde.
+ a very strong and reliable slip joint, you can be sure it will never collapse on your fingers till you do it deliberately
+ a simple and reliable design: the handle is made out of one steel sheet, folded in the midle to form the back of the handle where the spring takes support, one pin for the blade axe, one pin to maintain the spring and the ring to attach a cord. No useless part, just the fonctionnality.
+ relatively cheap (prices in France): 12EUR (18USD) for the carbon blade, 17EUR (25USD) for the stainless version, medium size
+ three sizes: 3, 4, 5 inches blades (notice the 5" is lot more expensive: 65EUR, about 95USD, but the handle is convex and polished)
And now, the famous Laguiole:
(With the corkscrew, please
)With this knife, we begin to enter in the domain of the true traditionnal french pocket knife. Regrettably, the Laguiole have been copied over and over, and most of them are only crap made in asia. This traditionnal design have never been protected, and here we are now. But we still product it in France. In the town of Laguiole, of course, but also in Thiers, and many knifemakers tried it once. It have many many variations: the materials of the scales, the blade (damascus or not?), the corkscrew, the awl (don't forget it meant to be a popular knife, and the awl can be usefull for many tasks), file works, etc...
Now, a more technical presentation. The Laguiole is normally what we call a "cran forcé" (i don't know the english translation, sorry), it means there is no true lock that maintain the blade fixed, but only a very hard point when the blade id fully open. There is a notch on the blade that ressembles to a lockback, but it's in fact a spring that goes in. You would have understand that it's a knife mounted on liners (as the Opinel and Douk were both "full handles"). The blade have what we call a "yatagan" shape (broken back and sligthly upswept point). And one last detail: on the top of the spring, near the blade, ther is what we call "la mouche" (the fly).
I can't say much more about this knife, cause they are so many variations i can't even do a list. Just know that there are some other older and more expensive designs: a lady's leg with it's bootee (called then "bottine"), a kind of strange shape i cannot really describe called "aile de pigeon" (pigeon's wing, but don't search the wing, nor the pigeon), another looking like a twisted rope, called "corde", etc... There is also new design for more hard uses, we call "Laguiole de chasse" (hunting Laguiole), "Laguiole Nature", "Laguiole de sport", things like that (all of the previously listed are lockbacks). And for those who like to open their whine in the french way, there is also the "Laguiole sommelier", that just keep the handle shape, but have one small blade to cut the metal hood of the botle, of course a corkscrew, and a metal piece with two notchs that takes support on the neck of the bottle, making lever to have more force for extracting the cork.
I can't give names of good manufacturers of Laguiole knives, but sure if you come in Thiers, you fond them in every cutlery store! I will also not do the "main qualities" thing, as it all depends of the maker. The only thing is that it's a traditionnal design that offers many possibilities in term of quality and preciosity. From noname stainless steel with red/green stamina scales to most famous knifemakers' damascus blade with gold engravings, forged spring and fly, file works, and mamouth scales.
Well... i think that's enough for today.
If you like this post, let me know, i will try to make more, about more traditionnal knives, less known in America (then more interesting for most of readers here, i suppose).
Last edited by a moderator:
! Damn, you're what we can call a fan. I guess you don't have all those with original woods or horn? Ahah! Now i've put it in your mind, you will not sleep 
Glad to hear it. I wasn't sure whether the "fly" was some sort of lock (like the spanish navaja) or just a decorative end to the backspring.